


Old Friends and Broken Promises

by b_ofdale



Category: The Alienist (TV), The Alienist - Caleb Carr
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Post-Book(s), Spoilers, are you wondering what John is like post books when he's not complaining and being sarcastic, read this and find out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-05 00:38:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12179586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/b_ofdale/pseuds/b_ofdale
Summary: Months have passed since the Beecham and Hatch cases changed everything—but their shadows still linger over John's life.





	Old Friends and Broken Promises

**Author's Note:**

> The Alienist books were my 2017 summer books in preparation for the TV show and wow it had been years since I'd last felt so invested in a book series! Is 2018 here already? I kinda need to get my hands on the third book right now immediately. 
> 
> I absolutely wrote this because I was bitter that Caleb Carr killed off sweet innocent Joseph when I was so hyped to finish the first book so that I could write a fic about John adopting him, but no he had to die and be thrown into a sack. :(
> 
> So there you are, I hope you'll like this sad fic about John. 
> 
> Huge thanks to [Liz'](http://archiveofourown.org/users/johnsmoore/) for the editing and for pushing me to finally sit down and write something. <33

It had been a long time since John had last come here. He’d never felt the need to—or, perhaps, hadn’t had the courage would be more correct. 

The setting sun set soft shadows upon the ground, and John thought it was peculiar, how different this place looked depending on the time of the day. At night, it was scary. In the morning, it was as though a different world had gone to sleep, and throughout the day the feeling lingered. And in the evening, it was a strange feeling of peace and melancholy that came brushing the souls wandering the grass of the cemetery. 

But John didn’t feel peace, nor melancholy. He could brush it, but as he sat upon the grass in front of the graves he had come to see, he felt little more than guilt and sorrow, which put an uncomfortable pressure on his chest, set a lump in his throat. 

He’d been told it’d get easier with time. He had thought so, too. In the end, it always came back, didn’t it? It came back, or more grief was added to the pile. He could drink and gamble and take men and women back to his bedroom all he wanted, but it _would always eventually come back._

John hated it. And, as much as he did, he felt resigned, too. What was there he could do anyway? He couldn’t turn back time and somehow fix everything. 

In a swift motion that betrayed how often he practiced it, John produced his flask of cheap whisky from the inside of his jacket. If his friend Sara were to taste it, she’d say _shit_ would have probably tasted better, but John couldn’t bring himself to care. 

He let out a sigh before emptying the small bottle in one quick gulp—maybe too quick, for when he coughed it out and swallowed it again the right way, the booze burned his throat and brought tears to his eyes. 

John didn’t know for how long he’d been sitting there. 

His eyes fell on the graves that he’d tried not to stare at until now. His grandmother’s was the most recent one, and next to it was his younger brother’s, already covered with weeds and cracked on the corners. On their right was a third, and it was perhaps the hardest to look at. He tried to convince himself that the droplets now rolling down his cheeks were caused by the alcohol, not his heartbreak.

The small gravestone, which John had chosen himself almost a year and a half ago now, read Joseph’s name. 

No other name now spoke more of a shattered future and broken promises than this one. John clenched his hands into fists until his knuckles turned white. There was no one in sight, but he didn’t want to be weak by allowing himself to cry. Why couldn’t he simply be a man, and carry on with his life?

“You had him buried here.”

John started, almost jumping to his feet with the sheer shock of being approached so silently, and surprised so suddenly. He quickly shifted on the spot to look behind him, and the sight that welcomed him made him heave out a sigh—of relief or resignation, he didn’t know.

“Kreizler! I somehow knew you’d find me,” John said, sounding defeated but smiling unconvincingly nonetheless as he turned back to the graves. 

“If you weren’t at any gambling table or any bar, where else would you be?” Despite his words, Laszlo’s voice was soft and considerate. John heard him take a few steps, and then he felt a hand resting on his shoulder. “You didn’t come to Delmonico’s the other night.”

Another deep breath, and John replied, “I wasn’t in the mood. I’ll call, next time.” 

_Next time? Way to be positive,_ John thought bitterly, and as he read Joseph’s gravestone again, more tears brimmed his eyes. He thought about how after Joseph, Rupert’s turn had come so fast, and he clenched his hands harder. 

Laszlo’s hand left his shoulder. “It’s alright. I’d only recommend you to apologize to Sara before seeing her, or she’ll ‘see that you have a good reason to dump us next time.’” He let out a low, short chuckle. “Her words.”

John groaned. Hell, if that didn’t sound _exactly_ like Sara. After a nod of his head, John glanced at his friend; Laszlo was handing him a handkerchief. John stared at it. “Is. . . is that one of Lucius’?” 

Sitting next to him, Laszlo shrugged. “Yes. He said you might need it.”

John scoffed, but secretly appreciating Lucius’ considerate thought as he took the offered handkerchief anyway and wiped his cheeks with the soft fabric. 

Neither of them spoke for a moment, a time which John used to try putting order into his thoughts and the mess that were his feelings, until Laszlo’s steady voice broke the silence. “Do you want to talk about it?”

John considered the question. Did he _want_ to talk about it? Not really. But did he _need_ to? Now that was another question entirely, one he wasn’t so sure of the answer. 

“It’s been over a year!” John shook his head. “I should be stronger than this. I shouldn’t need to talk about it.”

“But do you?”

“I—” John stopped there, looking down to his hands and then up to the names on the stones, surrounded by the flowers he’d brought earlier. He thought about Rupert’s, in Ballston Spa, and felt a tinge of gratitude tinted with sadness as he remembered Mrs. Hastings was surely taking care of it. It was good to remember that others cared—but it didn’t make it alright. 

“I did,” he finally said. Laszlo tilted his head slightly to the side, silently telling him that he was listening. “I did bring him here. I still can’t bear to think of what would have become of him if I hadn’t.”

“Why didn’t you tell any of us?” Laszlo asked, and John didn’t know whether or not he liked how patient Laszlo was being with him that evening—his friends surely pitied him enough as it was. Shaking the thought away, John returned his attention to him. It wasn’t fair to think like that when his friend was only here to help, out of the goodness of his heart; but it was always hard to accept a listening ear when one didn’t want to admit that they needed it in the first place. “You didn’t have to do this on your own.”

It was John’s turn to shrug. He kept his eyes fixed on the grave, allowing himself to feel the kind warmth of the setting sun upon his face. “None of you knew him,” he said quietly. “You were grieving Mary, and the others were focused on the case. I _had_ to do this on my own.”

The chuckle that escaped Laszlo then was a sad one. “You really didn’t,” he said, before putting the hand of his bad arm over John’s shoulder. “But let’s not dwell on this. You did well, John—it was thoughtful of you.”

Laszlo lay a scrutinizing gaze on him, and it took a moment for John to understand that his words held another question— _but why did you?_

John sighed, rubbed his eyes and clasped his hands together, squeezing them hard once more. He wouldn’t have been surprised if, by seeing these graves together, Laszlo hadn’t already figured most of it out by himself. He knew his. . . _context_ , after all. Didn’t he? 

But, he’d heard and seen enough to know by now that accepting that people knew was easier than _letting_ them know yourself. Words held power, and as a journalist he was well placed to know that. Perhaps it was time that he let them out. 

“I had plans—I wanted to help him,” he said, quietly still. “I wanted to do, for once, something meaningful. I wanted to change his life, and mine. But I messed it up, Kreizler. I messed it up _big time_. And—” John took a deep breath, and wiped his cheeks which were wet once again. (Why did crying always come so easily to him?) His next words, when he spoke them, were about much more than just Joseph. “And I can’t fix it, can I, Laszlo?”

He tucked Lucius’ handkerchief into his inside pocket.

His friend’s answer didn’t take long to come, and when it did, Laszlo’s voice was still kind, but betrayed nothing: “No indeed John, you can’t.”

John glanced at Laszlo again, and with a pinch to his heart he took in how much understanding there was in his friend’s eyes. Of course, Laszlo understood. He should have known better than to forget that no one could more than him. 

“Are we meant to be alone?”

Anyone else would have answered that they weren’t; that they had friends and associates they could count on. But that wasn’t what John meant. 

“Perhaps some people are,” Laszlo answered honestly. “And perhaps we are some of those people. But who knows what can happen—there’s still time.”

“Is there?” John murmured, and how Laszlo didn’t answer said enough.

Some more minutes passed in sorrowful but strangely comfortable silence. Though his heart was still heavy, it had been long since he had last displayed his feelings—thinking it not worth it, and a part of him being too proud to accept that he might need it—but it felt. . . _comforting_ , somehow, to talk to his old friend, who, if John dared to say, sometimes should take his own advice and open up a bit more, too. 

But at least they had always been there to look out for each other, and maybe that was what mattered most, in the end. 

“Do you remember when we were kids?” John asked with a somewhat sad laugh. He thought back of those carefree days when he and his brother would unleash hell wherever they went in the slums, uncaring of the shame it brought upon their family. “Do you ever miss it?”

It hadn’t always been easy, but it _had_ been all so much easier back then, hadn’t it? Not having to worry which one of your loved ones would die because of you. 

Only having to worry about what your parents—

“Oh.” Abruptly realizing what he’d said, John pinched the bridge of his nose and mentally reprimanded himself for being so quick to speak and so slow to think his words through, again. “Right, no, yes. I’m sorry Laszlo, I didn’t mean— _I’m such an idiot_ —”

“I know,” Laszlo said, applying soft pressure to John’s shoulder. His black eyes were of great sympathy, and they turned towards the field of graves before them, which they grazed slowly, turning melancholic. “It’s alright, John. I know what you meant—and, to answer your question. . . I do, sometimes. It wasn’t all bad.”

That moment—John thought that was the moment they understood each other better than they’d ever had. 

Eventually Laszlo’s hand left his shoulder, and there they sat for a while longer, watching the sun set down the horizon. He’d needed to be alone, but. . . having a friend around while he thought of his mistakes and all those missed opportunities, all those things he had to let go of in order to carry on, meant more than he would have allowed himself to imagine. 

“Kreizler? Thank you for being there.”

“Anytime, Moore.”

They shared a brief smile, like they’d just reminded each other that they were more alike than it seemed, unlike what the team on its first days used to wonder; why someone like John had his place amongst them, until Laszlo assured them that there was nowhere else he’d rather have him. Like they’d reminded each other that shutting themselves away was never the path to take in the long run. If Laszlo hadn’t found him—John couldn’t tell for how long he wouldn’t have answered calls.

John shook himself off. This really wasn’t like him; a drink and some bets at Brübacher's Wine Garden and he’d feel better. 

“Care to share a cab?” John suggested as he stood up with a grunt, trying a more cheerful tone like it would ease the past hour’s sad mood. Like he wasn’t hurting so much, deep down. Laszlo’s look told him his friend wouldn’t be so easily fooled. 

But Laszlo merely shook his head at the invitation. “No, thank you,” he said, standing up with John’s help before dusting off his clothes. “There’s someone I need to see, too.”

John slowly nodded in understanding, and after a last squeeze of Laszlo’s shoulder, made to leave.

“John.” John turned on his heels at the call of his name, meeting Laszlo’s eyes. “You would have been a good father.”

A sharp nod of his head, and John had already turned his back on Laszlo and the graves, walking away and trying not to draw blood as he bit down on the inside of his cheek and, with all his will, managed not to let any more tears roll down his face.

**Author's Note:**

> Liked this? Please press the Kudos button, and I'll have a statue built in your honor if you leave me even a tiny comment. <3 Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> Find me on Tumblr @ [evansluke](http://evansluke.tumblr.com/)!


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